Working Title

On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change is an interesting document by Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism at University of Southern California. In some ways, it seems prescient; in others, it just shows how evident this media crash was two years before it happened (she wrote the document in 2006) and how amazing it is that the issue didn’t register on the public radar until it became dire.

The document is based on a gathering of journalists and scholars at Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania in 2005 to determine what to do regarding the challenges facing journalism.

• A bigger role for nonprofits, including foundation support;

• More availability of media literacy courses, civics in school, and other things that encourage debate;

• Speaking out more as journalists, in response to challenges to freedom of information, misrepresentation of the press, reporters threatened with jail;

• The media should hold itself accountable and be transparent in its work;

• The discussion about having a free and responsible press should be brought to public attention;

Responsible corporate governance at media companies to help sustain original journalism;

• A clearer understanding of ethics and good practices among journalists, and recommitment to journalism as public-service;

• Understanding new forms of media and the involvement of new groups in media-making, plus the challenges they pose;

• Public consideration of the government;s role in protecting, regulating, and supporting the press

I’m reading this document for a research proposal to study a local non-profit newsroom, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Stay tuned.

Jeff Jarvis of CUNY writes in the Guardian about how hyperlocal bloggers could become a city’s source of news. Jarvis directs the New Business Models for News Project at his university.

Bottom line: after three years, we project that a blogger could hire editorial staff and advertising help – citizen salespeople who help support the citizen journalists – and net $148,000 out of $332,000 revenue. That’s a conservative estimate when you consider that a community weekly paper in such a town probably earns between $2m-$5m.
— Let’s build an ecosystem around hyperlocal bloggers Guardian 14 Sep 2009

As a part of our Working Title project, I have been reading A Sacred Trust | Nelson Poynter and the St. Petersburg Times by Robert N. Pierce.

Much of the book focuses on Nelson Poynter’s life, but many sections deal with the development of the Poynter Institute and the unusual structure of its ownership of the Times — the part we are interested in.

One paragraph I encountered described the different structures Poynter and his lawyers considered as they planned for the eventual transfer of ownership that would maintain the man’s ideals.

Throughout the early 1970s, idea after idea was explored, picked apart, and usually shelved or flatly rejected. Among them were ownership by the pension and profit-sharing fund, by Yale University or some other educational institution, even by a sole proprietor to whom it would be given. One recourse never taken seriously was public commercial ownership, to which many newspapers [...] were turning. Poynter was dead set against it. He was terrified that stockholders might try to shape editorial decisions.
— A Sacred Trust Chapter 10 In Pursuit of Forever

It is interesting to see how similar structural changes that we are analyzing and are being suggested now were considered decades ago.

• On a merger of Harvard and the Times 19 Feb 2009
• The end of the press baron 2 Jul 2009

Ian Shapira writes about one of his stories in the Washington Post being summarized in Gawker and how that affects the business of the Post.

By creating value, but offering it for free the Post is allowing sites like Gawker to capture that value and make money off it.

More readers are better than fewer, of course. But those referring links — while essential to our current business model — aren’t doing much, ultimately, to stop our potential slide into layoffs and further contraction. Worse, some media experts believe that Gawker and its ilk, with their relatively low overhead, might be depressing online ad revenue across the board. That makes it harder for news-gathering operations to recoup their expenses.
— The Death of Journalism (Gawker Edition) Washington Post

It also shows that even if news outlets restrict their content, they still have to control where it gets copied.

• How charging for online news is different from selling digital music 3 Jul 2009

The Voice of San Diego was founded because of the shortcomings of The San Diego Union-Tribune, but now the U-T is getting into the non-profit investigative journalism game by funding a new investigative reporting operation, the Watchdog Institute.

Other similar bodies already exist like the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

A top editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune is leaving the paper to start a local non-profit watchdog institute that will provide “data-driven investigative journalism” to media outlets, including the U-T.
[...]
According to Winner, the institute will be supported by donations and grants. It wasn’t immediately clear how the U-T will support the institute, although Winner wrote that the partnership between the two entities shows the paper’s “strong financial commitment to continuing to provide public service work.” Winner said the U-T will be in the institute’s “lead partner.”
— U-T Editor Starts Non-Profit Journalism Project VoS 29 Jun 2009

Reports say the newspaper is in talks with San Diego State University to house the institute. The staffers that will move to the Institute will still work with U-T reporters so, at least some of the proceeds of the investigations will go to the newspaper.

The new head of the Institute Lori Hearn denies control by U-T in quotation in the Voice, “This is not the Union-Tribune’s non-profit. . . . It is my idea for starting a nonprofit, and I approached The San Diego Union-Tribune as partners.”

Regardless of control or details of the relationship, this setup lets the for-profit Union-Tribune realize more value. The newspaper can attract grants and donations to the institute, receive information for new reports from the institute, and then make money from the stories it produces.

This is an example of where traditional operations can benefit from adopting a mixed model that includes alternative business units.

• Interviewed Voice of San Diego founder 9 Apr 2009

“This is what God would have built if he had had the money.” That’s what George Bernard Shaw said about St. Donat’s Castle in Wales, after it was bought and renovated by William Randolph Hearst.

Hearst and his ilk are endangered. The 19th- and early-to-mid-20th-century image of the press baron — swaggering, jacket-wearing, cigar-smoking — is a thing of the past. There won’t be any more Ken Thomsons putting millions into Toronto’s art galleries.

Sure, Hollywood’s wealthiest music producer David Geffen suggested he’d buy the New York Times and turn it into a non-profit. We have yet to see any real deal. For all we know, this was nothing but a publicity stunt.

Many in Canada have lamented the brisk sweep of chain newspaper ownership, with its concomitant loss of local independence and its focus on making mountains of cash for wealthy owners. As margins shrink, I think we might just see chains divesting themselves of papers and community-based groups springing up in place of press barons.

As much of newspapers’ content becomes commodified and a wide open distribution system, opportunity for niche and local operators will increase.

Could it be that when the dust settles, the crisis in the news business will lead to more independent, thoughtful, community-based reporting?

So it’s come to this. Ann Arbor will be the first city in the US to lose its only newspaper.

The news, though, I would say is not quite as dire as it sounds. The Ann Arbor News will be replaced with annarbor.com, a web publication that will go to print Thursdays and Sundays.

Of course, they laid off all their staff — who now have the option of applying for jobs at the website — and sold their iconic building. But while that might be upsetting or frustrating, I hope we’ve all gotten used to the idea that news businesses won’t be as flashy as they once were — I no longer expect a city to have a downtown skyscraper labeled “Toronto Star,” and I’ve stopped imagining that there’ll be another Ken Thomson. Ever.

At least there’ll still be some news in Ann Arbor.

We’ll keep a close eye on what bevvy of print and online publications spring up as this plays out.

In the meantime, check out this interesting analysis from Poynter about why Ann Arbor was the first to go.

• Why Ann Arbor Will be the First City to Lose its Only Daily Newspaper, Rick Edmonds, Poynter Biz Blog, June 23
  

Simple economics can explain why the traditional news business model is falling apart. That’s what Stuart McFayden, a University of Alberta business professor and co-author of a book on media economics, convinced me.

What’s happening, he said, is that news is becoming more and more of what economics refers to as a “public good.” A public good has two unusual characteristics:

• It’s not rival in consumption, that is, I can read the news and you can read the news and it doesn’t get used up. A car is rival: if I buy it, you can’t.
• It’s not excludable. Reading the news has become free, so people cannot be excluded from it. A printed paper is excludable – you might not be able to afford to buy it.

The fundamental shift that’s happening is that the internet is pushing the news more and more into the sphere of a public good. That makes its provision by private companies more and more difficult, McFayden argues, which is why the news needs a new business model. And so the nub of the issue is, who is going to produce content?

There’s also the question of external benefits. Even if I never read a newspaper, I benefit from the fact other people do: they monitor my government for me. So perhaps it makes sense for me to fund a news source even if I never directly make use of it.

McFayden was largely opposed to the idea of news delivered by not-for-profits. In such organizations, profits are dissipated or go back to those involved. The market system is needed to provide discipline, he argued.

And he added that perhaps, instead of trying to reimagine the existing newspaper, we should look at organizations that function well and imagine them providing print news. He suggested that the BBC, which is already set up as a government-funded entity and already has a tradition of robust news coverage, might start providing more print news, presumably on the internet.